I would agree for general programs, but football is different due to the physcial nature of the sport.
" The study, published Tuesday in the *[Journal of the American Medical Association] found CTE in 99 percent of brains obtained from National Football League (NFL) players, as well at 91 percent of college football players and 21 percent of high school football players."
There is a head injury risk in high school, but certainly in college. If there is an option to eliminate a 21% risk for degenerative brain disease for my kid, I am going to do what I can to prevent him from playing football. Obviously some kids get a chance of a lifetime to go to college for free and that risk might be worth it, I would rather they try other sports.
Itās not concussions that cause degenerative brain disease, it repeated concussions especially when not having recovered from one.
Like right now, though I am mostly fine cognitively another concussion can cause far more damage to me now, than a year from now.
The mistakes we made are āBeing toughā and ārub some dirt on itā. Then, āYou look good to me, you should come back to play or I will find your replacement.ā
Allowing full recovery from a concussion makes the biggest difference of all. Now that itās mandated, I am pretty sure you will see the amount of long term brain injuries significantly decrease.
I understand there is always a risk, but as long as we do the right things to mitigate that risk, play ball. And I am saying this while still recovering from a concussion. I am 14 weeks. They take a loooong time to recover from. At 6 weeks I was still slurring my words and not allowed to drive. Basically, anybody truly diagnosed should be out for the year automatically. If you cannot pass that baseline test, you wonāt for a while. And you cannot fake those tests.
Agreed, but theyāre also finding that it happens from sub-concussive hits. People who have never had an official concussion have CTE. I completely agree with you on fully recovering, that clearly does not happen and people suffer the rest of their lives because of it. One of the challenges is when a hard hit happens and it doesnāt completely knock you out and you donāt have a āconcussionā but the brain trauma still needs time to recover, but just about everybody would play through it.
Football is not unique in having that type of risk, soccer (from headers), hockey, rugby Iām sure all have some degree as well, but football has been proven to have a high risk especially at collegiate+ levels. I know I will not want my kids to take that risk if I have any ability to influence their decision.
Bell says heās returning to the Steelers Week 7 for the Browns game. My guess is heās intending to make a statement by doing more work on the Browns than James Conner did. Thatāll be tough. 31 carries for 135 yards and 2 touchdowns, and 5 catches for 57 yards. Bell didnāt do that well last time they faced the Browns, and I think his O-line may be less than motivated to protect him in the same manner.
The good news for little league and high school football is that the field is not full of guys who run 4.4 sec 40s at 250 lbs. A helmet to helmet hit between two high school kids who weigh 180 lbs and run a 5.0 sec 40 is much less likely to hurt the brain. It still happens, but the elite players we watch are human missles.
I also canāt help but notice that the pads are smaller these days. Iāll see an old highlight and the players are smaller and the pads are bigger. I wonder how that factors into things.
I agree. I would be curious if the increase in CTE is due to the speed/strength related with higher levels as you mention or more due to the volume of accumulated hits that happen with someone who has been playing for a longer period of time.
Regardless, 1/5 high school kids having CTE is still a massive risk.
I would bet brain damage was still happening in the āoldā days, but we are more aware of it now. With that said, players are bigger/stronger today, pads are smaller, helmets have been redesignedā¦etc.
You make some good points. But perhaps we shouldnāt talk about it here, weāre hijacking the thread. I think we understand where each other is coming from, but if it warrantās further discussion, weāll start a concussion thread.
I thought about doing that when I got mine, sort of a public log on someone whoās really going through concussion and what itās like. Then I realized, nobody probably gives a shit about my problems, so in the end I didnāt do it.
I think heās signed his fate with the Steelers. I donāt think anybody on that team wants him. I understand he wanting to get his, but when heās whining about $14 mil he doesnāt get much sympathy even among NFL players. And when his team is struggling to win games? Yeah, he gonna show up alone and leave alone. The rookies might talk to him.
Especially with limited carriesā¦ They may let him suit up, they may even pay him, but they donāt owe him time on the field when everybody else has been there all year.
Perhaps, or they relied on Bell too much and were adapting to life without him. I like Tomlin but I donāt know that much about the Steelers except what everybody else knows and whatās been said.
I canāt remember what it is, but there is some kind of sciency new material that they use now that is like 1000x (maybe a little less) better at shock absorption and distribution than the old stuff.
It was on the discovery channel. Really crazy modern materials science and engineering stuff.
Iāve never liked him. He doesnāt challenge the players when they fail hard enough. Cowher used to get in their faces and chew out their soul. Tomlin gives them a little nod and letās them throw tantrums.
Saw that the Ravensā DC called Mayfield, āThis generationās Elway or Favre.ā I want to believe it more than I care to admit, ha. Iād love to see the Browns surge behind a gunslinger QB.
Brownies notched win #2. Whatās with Flacco @anon50325502 ? Above average one week, then lays an egg.
Matt Ryan got sacked 6 times. Wouldāve been 8 if not for the BS roughing penalties. Itās like he got hit with kryptonite after that superbowl loss, heās never been the same.